


The Interviews

by Emmy1021



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, M/M, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Misunderstandings, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Protective Avengers, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Suicidal Thoughts, Team as Family, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, What hes seeing isn’t real, steve Rogers is going to give him that hug, tony is drugged without him knowing, tony is having a very bad day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22691029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmy1021/pseuds/Emmy1021
Summary: Tony, for the first time in his entire life, feels completely and catastrophically alone.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 11
Kudos: 79
Collections: Avengers as Family





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ummm so this is my first AO3 fic! I had this idea about Tony getting injected with a mind altering drug during a fight and living out his worst fears, so this first chapter is very very sad. Definitely trigger warnings for suicidal thoughts, please take care of yourselves!
> 
> I’m avengersfamilylove on tumblr if anyone wants to chat!

Tony, for the first time in his entire life, feels completely and catastrophically alone.

He looks down at the envelope in his hands, pulls the pictures out, reads through the article once, twice, six times. His hands shake where he’s gripping the pages so tight his knuckles are staunchly white, he sinks to his knees in the middle of his workshop floor. The nausea comes on so quickly he dry heaves in great gasping breaths, the arc reactor pushing violently against his ribs as his body tries to eject food that isn’t there.

He hears JARVIS’ voice distantly, like he’s underwater, the alarm in the AI’s voice apparent, but Tony can’t make out the words.

JARVIS...

JARVIS gave them access to this, to these files. The pictures from folders he had locked far away, encrypted so only he could access them. He and JARVIS.

For the first time in the 10 years since Afghanistan, Tony wishes for death. He’s paralyzed with fear, with anguish, with _betrayal_ , he knows he should be making it to the control panel, to the emergency shut off, but he’s glued to the floor, gasping for air around a panic attack the likes of which he’s never had before.

He wishes desperately he was back with Obie, pulling his very heart from his chest. That he was back in the cave, his head held under water. Anything, the vast emptiness of space even, would be a paradise compared to this hell he’s in. At least then, he still had hope that Rhodey and Pepper and Happy would miss him if he died.

Now he knows that to be false.

Dummy is next to him, Making panicked beeps while U and Butterfingers roll around nervously behind him, their high pitched whines breaking through the haze of grey that has taken over Tony’s vision.

These bots, this AI, the love he poured from his hands to create something that might love him back. His children. His babies, he thinks hysterically.

But in the end, they are only metal and code. And Tony is a father to none, will never, ever be one. Not now. Not anymore.

He focuses on the papers and the pictures once again, seeing the names mixed in with the ‘interviews’ as the article puts it. Clint, who he literally caught as he jumped off a building _just yesterday_. Thor, who out of everyone, he thought would have had the least reason to despise him. Natasha, who he knew, _he knew_ , not to trust, knew it the second he saw her. But like dear old dad always said, Tony’s downfall would be his pathetic heart.

“Wanting friends will be your end, boy. No one befriends a Stark for anything other than our genius, which they will steal from you if you let them!”

Tony remembers these words particularly well, having just found out his best friend in his third grade class was the son of a competitor, who brought a fucking _tape recorder_ to their ‘play date’.

Now, he looks down at the article again. _Pepper_. His _Pepper_. He reads her words and knows, _he knows_ , that it came from her. That everything in this article came from them. He knows because each small detail, each vulnerability, each exact word he recognizes as his own, as he had opened up, just a little, to these people, he let these thoughts leave the safe haven of his brain and he put them out into the world _but_...

But they were just for them. For the people he thought he knew, trusted with his life, and then, with his secrets. His chinks in the armor. He remembers each exact scenario where he let these slip, remembers each exact person who he allowed to see his battered heart. So of course it came from them, because he shared this with no one else. No one.

He’s crying as he reads _Bruce’s_ words. Bruce, who knew him so well, knew his SCIENCE and his GENIUS and knew exactly what to say, his secrets to the arc reactor, to the suit, the repulser technology. Listed, word for word, on the cursed page. Everything. Compromised. The exact way to kill Tony Stark, listed like a recipe. And JARVIS, who knew more than anyone else, knew literally all of the data, all of the power behind Tony’s mind, _the weapons, they’ll come for the weapons, shut it down, kill it, kill it before it spreads._

JARVIS has to be shut down. JARVIS has the power to wipe out all of New York, all because Tony thought a machine might love him, if not as a father, then as a friend. But a picture is worth a thousand words, and JARVIS has a thousand pictures.

Tony scrambles to the small, secret control box at the baseboard of the far wall, not hearing JARVIS’ increasingly loud shouts or the bots desperate attempts to grab him, to stop him because they knew, _they knew_ , knew he had figured it out. The game had been exposed. The fear that gripped Tony was worse than anything, he knew they could use the suits, JARVIS could use the suits to kill him, Dummy could bash him over the head with the fire extinguisher, JARVIS had probably alerted the team, alerted whoever he was working for.

Tony dove for the panel, prying it open and typing in the 15 digit code, yanking up the nearest floor panel, his nails bloody as he clawed at it, pulling the key card from its small home. Inserting the key card putting his hand to the scanner, turning and activating at the same time, barely hearing the “activating SKYNET PROTOCOL” over the roaring in his ears.

And in the next instant, dark silence. No hum of machinery, no whirs of the bots, no JARVIS.

He called it the apocalypse EMP. A last fail safe, should JARVIS be hacked and compromised. Or willingly turn against Tony. The whole tower was on permanent lockdown. No one in or out. Everything completely blacked out.

Even the arc reactor.

Gasping, Tony rolled onto his back, trying to get air into lungs where shrapnel was slowly moving towards his fast beating heart. From his position, he could see the lifeless bodies of the bots, frozen in place.

The sight brings tears to his eyes again, makes the high pitched whine he’d been holding back break out of his throat. His bots. His children. His _babies_. Dead by his own hand. For a moment, he forgets the betrayal and wants nothing more than to hear JARVIS’ voice, see the bots alive, see his creations filled with life and know that they exceeded his every expectation, that he raised them and they flourished.

He sees the papers spread out behind the bots and the moment ends. Turning back to the panel, he pulls the tiny pen light out of its shielded case, the only electronic spared from the EMP. He crawls back over to the papers, the pictures, his bloody fingers leaving marks on the floor. He should have known. ‘Nothing gold can stay Tony’, isn’t that what Obie always said?

Moving the pen light back over the papers, he catches _James Rhodes_ and feels the shrapnel shift towards his heart. He can’t breathe. This is a nightmare, it’s not real, it’s not ITS NOT. His vision blurs, his head swims, he can’t get any air into his lungs. Not Rhodey. Not his Rhodey. He wouldn’t do this to him. But as he reads, he knows that these are things that only Rhodey knows. That only Rhodey was witness to, during their MIT years when Tony was young and dumb and had something to prove. He reads Rhodeys words, recounting the time Tony tried to kill himself their junior year. It’s listed as just another reason that Tony is bad, is unstable, is unfit to be an Avenger. The whole article is a mish mash of his detailed, personal failings, his mental illnesses, his PTSD, the red in his ledgers. The people he’s killed, the tragedies he’s responsible for. It’s calling for him to be locked up, to be stripped of his money and power, and it’s endorsed _by his closest friends._ The people that he trusted, that he loves...

Which brings him to Steve.

Steve, who that very morning had kissed Tony before his run, and brought Tony breakfast in bed before Tony made his way to the workshop.

Steve, who asked Tony to marry him the year before. Steve, who told Tony he loved him every single day, who has been the greatest thing to happen to Tony, who had never given Tony any reason to doubt him.

Steve detailed every single piece of Tonys heart, in the worst possible way. Every nightmare Tony’s had, every therapy visit, every crack in Tony’s psych. Every bad call he’s made as Iron man. All arranged to show who Tony really is, to make the point that Tony will be kicked off the Avengers, that he has no right to be a co-leader.

Tony flops to the side, wishing desperately for a gun, for a repulser, a knife, for the shrapnel to reach his heart now. Anything, anything to end this pain, to stop the anguish. Everyone he loved has turned on him, maybe were never even with him to begin with. Steve, the love of his life. Rhodey, his best friend. JARVIS, _his son_. These people, his team. His friends.

No friends.

‘I never deserved them’ he thinks. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised, this is just the universe correcting itself.’ He should have died in Afghanistan, but by some fluke he survived, and he’s been paying the price ever since.

The pain in his chest is very apparent now, he can feel how cold the arc reactor is, powered off and just leaching the heat from his soon to be dead body. He rolls to one side and curls up tight, wishing with all his might that he wakes up from this nightmare. Or that it will be over quickly. But he deserves a slow death, it seems. Someone like him that managed to make every single person in his life turn their backs on him, he must have caused them so much pain, so much trouble these past years. And he had thought things were going well! He was trying so hard, everyday he was trying to be better, to deserve the love he thought he had. He can hear his therapist now, explaining how his rational and emotional minds were at war with each other, how he punished himself for problems he couldn’t solve, for other people’s problems that he accepted the blame for. How hard it was for him to accept the love and trust from his teammates, to feel like he deserved any of it. He let himself be convinced, to finally break open his shell. Which seems to have been the idea all along.

He wonders how much his therapist made from this deal, how long she’d been in on it. Had his teammates told her exactly what they needed? Had she been a part of it from the start, or was she convinced later on, after meeting Tony and seeing him for the unloveable pathetic monster he was?

He supposed it doesn’t matter anymore. It was over and done with. All written down, all the I’s dotted and T’s crosses. The note with the article said it was being published at midnight, which could be in 4 minutes or 4 hours, he didn’t know. Tony had lost track of time in the workshop and hadn’t thought to check before opening the package. Soon the whole world would read it, and see exactly who Tony Stark was.

The only silver lining is that Tony would be dead before having to see the fall out. A blessing in disguise, just another thing he didn’t deserve. He couldn’t bare to even think of the mayhem, to see all his fears confirmed by the people closest to him and then dissected in countless newspapers and magazines, talk shows and news channels.

He wonders how long Rhodey has hated him. Did it start at MIT? Did rhodey see him for the monster that he was, even at 14? The clinical way he discusses their time together in college, he paints a very ugly portrait of Tony that he himself hadn’t been aware of, but makes total sense now. Why did Rhodey even find him in that desert? Why even look in the first place?

Tony’s thoughts are cut off by pounding on the workshop doors, still sealed in complete lockdown. He’s seized by fear once again. Clearly JARVIS had been able to alert the team, and they knew he had shut JARVIS down. They were here to finish the job.

He looks around frantically looking for some place to hide, somewhere where he didn’t have to face another group of people he loved as they tried to kill him.

‘Please make it quick’ he thinks hysterically. Though it was fitting for him to die here in his workshop, surrounded by his dead creations. What kind of father kills his children to save himself?

The thought causes him to slump to the ground. He deserves this. He deserves to be killed by the Avengers, he’s become the villain. Maybe he’s always been the villain. It would explain why his own parents never loved him, maybe they saw what he was from a young age.

He wants to hear JARVIS’ voice, wants Dummy and U and Butterfingers to be alive and rolling around, causing havoc.

Tony wants the real Jarvis with a fierceness he hasn’t felt since Afghanistan. But that Jarvis was paid to pretend to love him, so it would all be for nothing.

The door pounding has gotten louder, what sounds like maybe the shield being slammed into the doors over and over. They’ll get in soon enough, the lockdown wasn’t made to withstand an angry hulk, a god and a super soldier, let alone master spies.

He’s so tired now. Maybe if he closes his eyes, it will all be over soon...


	2. Chapter 2

Steve was having a great morning. He woke to a warm, cuddly Tony who he eased back to sleep before leaving for his morning jog. He stopped by Tony’s favorite bakery on the way home and grabbed a few dozen donuts, knowing that the team would be up soon and looking for breakfast. Returning home, he had had time to whip up bacon, eggs and toast before finally heading in to wake his sleeping fiancé. 

Tony had looked so soft and sweet in the morning light, and Steve felt a pang at having to wake him up from such a deep, restful sleep after the tough fight they had been called to the day before. But JARVIS had informed him that Colonel Rhodes was making a surprise visit to see Tony that afternoon, and Steve wanted Tony to have some food before no doubt being swept up in the excitement of having his best friend there with him and whisking him off the to workshop to talk bots and War Machine upgrades and couch cuddling.

A fond sigh left Steve’s mouth as he remembered the feel of Tony’s lips on his fingertips as he hand fed him a few pieces of bacon. With Tony’s tousled hair and sleepy eyes as an enticing distraction, Steve had had to force himself to let Tony finish his breakfast and get up for the day. 

Next to him, Natasha rolled her eyes at his obvious mooning. Tony had left for the workshop an hour ago and Steve was already missing him, sitting at the kitchen table and trying to read the sports section while waiting for Thor to arrive so they could spar. Clint sat to Natasha’s left, blearily staring into his coffee as he tried to cram the rest of his donut into his mouth.

“Ugh, can we have 5 minutes without dad making goo goo eyes for mom? I’m trying to eat here,” Clint groused good naturedly. Steve was about to respond when JARVIS interrupted him.

“Captain, I believe that Sir is experiencing some sort of distress. His heart rate has exceeded safe parameters and indicates the onset of a panic attack. He is not responding to my-“ JARVIS cuts off suddenly, and in the next instant the emergency alarms are going off.

Steve, Natasha and Clint had already jumped up and started running after JARVIS had started speaking, but now they were in a desperate sprint, each trying to get to their respective suits and weapons, not knowing if the tower was under attack. JARVIS’ voice cut through the alarms with something close to panic, which made Steve run cold at the obvious distress of the AI.

“Captain, please hurry, I believe Mr. Stark is experiencing hallucinations and he’s attempting to access the towers emergency shut down”

“What do you mean hallucinations, what’s happening down there JARVIS?!” Steve was shouting to be heard over the alarms, his adrenaline kicking into overtime as he sped through the tower’s halls, grabbing his shield before flinging himself toward the stairwell, Natasha and Clint two shadows behind him.

“Sir is engaging the emergency EMP, he is not listen-“ JARVIS’ voice is cut off as the stairwell is plunged into darkness, the alarms dying so quickly that Steve is temporarily disoriented in the pitch-black silence. Natasha grabs his forearm, a grounding point that brings everything back into focus as his eyes adjust to the dark and he sucks in a lungful of air that he didn’t realize he was holding.

Tony. Emergency EMP. The arc reactor. _Tony. Tony is dying, find him, help him, help him oh god-_

Gripping the stairway railing so hard that it crunches under the force, he grits out instruction in his Captain America voice.

“Natasha, get Tony’s back up arc reactor. Clint, find Bruce and tell him to bring his medical bag to the workshop.” After receiving two affirmatives, he flings himself over the railing into a controlled fall down 10 flights of stairs. He grabs hold of the railing at floor 20, where Tony’s workshop is located, and flips himself up onto the landing, and immediately bringing his shield up and smashing through the stairwell doors. He’s at the workshop doors in seconds, the sickening darkness coupled with the eerie silence of no technology, normally a constant comforting hum in the background all over the tower makes Steve’s blood turn to ice, the fear in his gut threatening to bring up his breakfast.

He’s throwing the shield before he even knows what he’s doing, following it and using his momentum to slam into the seal of the door where the shield had dented, but not broken through. His thoughts are single minded, just a constant stream of ‘Tony Tony Tony’ as he slams his shield into the door over and over again.

A hand grabs his shoulder and he whirls around to throw a punch, but catches himself as he makes out Thors shape, with Natasha behind him.

“We have to get the door open” he gasps out, relieved when Thor swings his hammer to drive Steve’s shield in deeper, finally making a deep enough cut that he and Thor can each get a hand in and pry the doors open. 

What’s waiting inside is something straight out of Steve’s worst nightmare, a graveyard of technology with Tony in the center, laying prone upon the floor, arc reactor dark and dead. Before Steve has a chance to fling himself at Tony, Natasha catches his hand.

“Steve, the EMP took out everything, including his back up arc reactors. We have to get the power back on somehow or we can’t help him,” she sounds stricken as he tries to make out her face, her words sending knives into abdomen. He makes out the box in her hand, another dead arc reactor inside. 

This cant be happening, Steve thinks hysterically. He had literally been kissing Tony only a few hours before, he can’t be dying now!

At that moment, Bruce and Clint come flying out of the stairwell, Bruce holding a suitcase of some kind as he rushes past them into the lab. “I have the key card to boot the power back up, we have to find the panel!” he shouts. Thor had made it to Tony already and was carefully layering his cape under Tony’s head as a makeshift pillow. They each fan out, feeling the walls for anything out of place, when Steve notices the broken floor panel and smells the bloody fingerprints on the wall.

“Here!” he shouts, dropping to his knees and ripping the baseboard completely off to show the small emergency panel. Bruce is next to him in a second, having grabbed a pen light that was somehow still working. He quickly set to work opening the briefcase, which seemed to have some sort of biometrics scanner plus a number pad that Bruce typing numbers into. How it still had power, Steve doesn’t know, and didn’t particularly care as long as it led to Tony being okay.

Finally, Bruce lets out a triumphant noise, opening the case and pulling out a key card and thrusting it into the wall panel, entering a long code as he twists the key. For a few seconds nothing happens, and Steve’s heart sinks back into the artic waters, but then suddenly a soft glow of the emergency lights starts up and a robotic voice says, “Ending SKYNET PROTOCOL, initiating start up sequence for THE MEAN GREEN BEAN.”

Bruce lets out a snort next to him and Steve allows himself a surge of fond exasperation. Only Tony would add a joke into something so catastrophically devastating. They both rush back over to Tony’s lifeless body, nausea rising in Steve’s throat as he takes in Tony’s shallow breaths. His arc reactor is still completely dark, though the one in Natasha’s hands has a soft glow to it as it seems to be powering up.

‘Please’, Steve thinks desperately, ‘please go faster.’ The power may be back on, but Tony needs the arc reactor yesterday.

“What the FUCK happened down here?” Clint spits out, his hawk eyes scanning the room in the dim emergency lights. Steve shares his sentiment, still on high alert and searching for a threat that would have done this to his fiancé. Behind him, Dummy and the bots are slowly whirring back to life, though still in what seems to be a sleep power saving mode. Tony had told him that the bots and JARVIS had fail safes in place to keep their AI software from ever being truly destroyed or lost, so even if the world was plunged into a solar flare apocalypse, his bots could always be saved. 

‘And he thinks he would be a terrible father,’ Steve thinks fondly.

After what feels like hours but is really only about 2 minutes, Natasha and Bruce make the switch of the reactors. They all wait with bated breath as the arc reactor flares as its locked into place, and Tony finally takes an unencumbered breath. Steve yearns to see Tony’s big bambi eyes open, wants to hear him make some sort of joke to blow off this whole situation, anything that proves that the man he loves is 100% alive and not on deaths doorstep.

Bruce is taking his vitals when JARVIS finally comes back to life, his voice tinny and far away, but no less comforting.

“What in the HELL happened here JARVIS?” Steve’s bites out, the fear still present in his mind as he surveys the workshop, finally noticing the papers scattered around Tony’s still form. Clint has noticed them as well and is picking up one of the blood-stained ones, a confused frown on his face. 

“Sir received a package yesterday that he opened this morning and seemed very focused on. When scanned originally, it did not pose any threat and was labeled safe, though the papers seemed odd. After reading them, Sir’s heartrate increased at an alarming rate and he began displaying concerning behavior, and not responding to enquires, before finally reacting negatively to Dummy’s touch and initiating the SKYNET PROTOCOL. I confess that I have never seen Sir in such a state, it was… disconcerting. I alerted Captain Rogers as per my health and safety protocols after Sirs heartrate increased so quickly.”

They were all looking at the papers now, Steve had picked up the nearest one and Thor was looking over his shoulder. The only thing on the page was what looked to be symbols of some kind, nothing Steve recognized.   
“It’s written in… wingdings?” Bruce murmured; brow furrowed. ‘Wingdings?’ Steve thought.

“Yes Dr. Banner, the font is known as wingdings but even when translated, it contains no discernable message. No technology was detected, nor any magic that my sensors are able to pick up.”

Steve glanced at Thor, but he shook his head “Aye, I detect no magic as well.”

At that moment, Tony’s eyes fluttered as he let out a soft groan. Steve was at his side instantly, pressing his hand to his arm to reassure himself that Tony was warm and alive. Natasha quickly gathered the papers and put them back into the package, wanting to get them away from Tony as fast as possible as they were obviously the trigger to whatever the hell had happened here. She was moving towards the doorway when Tony opened his eyes, no doubt getting ready to contact Coulson and request medical and a containment unit for the package until they could figure out what the papers meant.

Steve was already leaning in, speaking softly as not to startle Tony, when his eyes finally focused on Steve’s face and he paled so quickly Steve was worried he was going to pass out again.

That turned out to be the least of his worries as Tony opened his mouth and started screaming.


End file.
